Eight women on Albert St. fight to save their jobs

Eight local lab workers are fighting back against plans to close their all-female provincial public health laboratory in Sault Ste. Marie.

The four medical laboratory technologists and four lab attendants have jobs in the Ontario Works building at 540 Albert St. E., accessing their fully accredited Public Health Ontario (PHO) laboratory through a side entrance on McDougald Street.

It's one of 11 PHO labs in the province.

The others are in Toronto, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Orillia, Ottawa, Peterborough, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Timmins.

These labs serve public health units, hospital and community laboratories, long-term care homes and other congregate settings,
clinicians in private practice, and private citizens who need well water tested.

"This testing informs public health surveillance, detects threats and outbreaks, and enables preventive and therapeutic interventions for public health action and patient management in Ontario," says the PHO website.

Ontario's auditor general says three of the 11 public health laboratory sites - in Peterborough, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie - perform tests on only nine per cent to 20 per cent of the samples and specimens they receive.

These three labs transfer the remainder to other sites.

The auditor general noted that, over a four-year period, Sault Ste. Marie's lab transferred out 223,915 of 251,953 tests received - 89 per cent.

This compared to 91 per cent for Sudbury and 80 per cent for Peterborough.

But staff at the Sault Ste. Marie lab say Public Health Ontario has been gradually removing testing from their facility.

"By PHO taking testing away from SSM PHO lab the statistics are now skewed and testing sent out is very high because of all the testing taken away from our lab," they say.

"We have the expertise, experience and knowledge to perform more testing for SSM and northern Ontario and improve the testing turnaround times locally."

Andrew Addante, a real estate agent at Exit Realty True North, is very concerned about the pending closure.

"If our lab is closed, Sault Ste. Marie and the surrounding area will not have equitable access to water testing, and as a result higher risk of related illness," he says.

"If we all think back to the Mike Harris days, the word 'Walkerton' should ring a bell."

"Any property that has its water supplied by a well should have that water tested to ensure it is safe anytime ownership changes hands. It's a condition real estate agents typically always include when writing an offer on a property with a well, as if the water isn't potable, there needs to be action taken to correct the issue as contaminants in well water can lead to various illnesses," Addante says.

The Sault lab is now slated for closure, and the workers gained support from city council on Tuesday.

The city will now write to Health Minister Sylvia Jones and Sault Ste. Marie MPP Ross Romano to try the stop the closure of their laboratory.

Here's the full text of a letter sent by the lab workers to Mayor Matthew Shoemaker and city councillors:

Dear Mayor and members of city council:

We at Public Health Ontario lab in Sault Ste. Marie, (Shannon Morris, BSc, medical laboratory technologist (MLT), Ashley Hodgins (MLT), Tania Cawston (MLT and manager), Maria Simbirski (MLA and office admin), Kerry Adams (lab attendant), and Doris Graf (lab attendant)) are full-time employees and are requesting council to lobby the province to reverse course on the Ministry of Health from approving Public Health Ontario (PHO) plan from the Auditor General Report recommendations. (Value for Money) 

The auditor general's report and recommendations for the Public Health Ontario were made public on December 6/23. The end result of the auditor general report is recommending that six PHO labs are to be closed with SSM PHO lab being one of the six labs to be closed.

The auditor general only went to four labs with the furthest northern lab being Sudbury. The auditor general interviewed medical officers from eight out of 34 public health units with the most northwest being Sudbury.

In the auditor general's report they said multiple times that they are making these recommendations to lessen the inequities in health care for Ontarians.

The auditor general did not hear the voices of northern Ontarians and about how we already face health care inequities because of our distance from southern Ontario and lack of health care professionals and services in northern Ontario.

I feel that the auditor general's selection of medical officers they interviewed and the selection of PHO labs they visited does not represent northern Ontario fairly.

In the title of the auditor general's report “Value for Money Audit," it is the financial considerations the auditor general is basing their decisions on and not thinking about the inequities of health care services in northern Ontario.

The auditor general report is recommending to close six out of 11 labs. Four of the labs being in the first phase of closing and the SSM lab is one of the labs in the first phase.

The statistics that were published in the auditor general's report of samples received and samples sent out are as a result of PHO gradually taking away testing SSM was doing previously.

By PHO taking testing away from SSM PHO lab the statistics are now skewed and testing sent out is very high because of all the testing taken away from our lab.

We have the expertise, experience and knowledge to perform more testing for SSM and northern Ontario and improve the testing turnaround times locally.

For Sault Ste. Marie, there will be a loss of eight full-time female positions of skilled and experienced medical laboratory technologists and lab attendants.

Out of the eight full-time jobs there are four MLTs with the combined years of experience being 104 years.

This is an astronomical loss of expertise in a field of MLTs. The Conservative government has made tuition for the MLT program free to attract people to become MLTs due to the shortage of MLTs.

Our SSM PHO lab can contribute to help better the health care of northern Ontario citizens by increasing the testing at the SSM PHO lab and not closing it.

COVID is a prime example of how there is a disservice to SSM citizens and the citizens of northern Ontario. People of our community were waiting 10+ days for their COVID results. This could have been avoided if PHO added PCR COVID testing to the SSM lab. There was the experience and expertise in the SSM to run the tests.

It was reported by Algoma Public Heath that there is a high percentage of sexually transmitted infections (STI) in SSM. In the SSM lab we currently assess the STI slides and report STIs such as gram negative diplococci which is Neisseria gonorrhea as well as Trichomonas.

The SSM PHO lab can contribute to decreasing STI infections in the SSM area by decreasing turnaround times by testing locally.

It was mentioned in the auditor general report of the gradual discontinuation of the private drinking water testing. Many rural communities rely on us to test their waters, and what does this mean to the Safe Drinking Water Act?

Does it not apply to all Ontarians?

A few of the community safety concerns are:

• 30,000 citizens of SSM currently without a doctor (almost half the population of 70,000)
• unable to attract and retain doctors due to lack of clinical/diagnostic testing and health care services in SS
• should be increasing health care services including lab testing instead of closing our lab to support doctors in the treatment of patients
• lab staff (including Shannon Morris who is also a casual MLT) at Sault Area Hospital already overburdened with lab testing from critical care (ER, ICU, wards) and with the closure of PHO SSM Lab they will have to do more community testing putting critical care patients at risk, and risk to tourism and safety concerns:
• no more beach water testing, no more spa/pool testing for hotels and rec centres such as John Rhodes and YMCA
• no more provincial park water testing – drinking water safety concerns

The distance from Sudbury to Thunder Bay PHO labs is an 11-hour drive by car. I'm not sure if the auditor general or the decision-makers understand the geographical coverage of northern Ontario and the distance between cities/towns and the lack of health care services northern Ontario citizens face. Sample integrity will be compromised!

PHO is taking the recommendations that the auditor general gave in their report and implementing it in their plan.

Before PHO moves on with their plan, they need approval of the Ministry of Health. We’re not sure of the timeline this approval will take.

I am asking you to help us fight for the SSM PHO lab to better health care in SSM and in northern Ontario. Show the minister of health that there is more to Ontario than the places where the majority of the citizens live, southern Ontario. Toronto is not the solution to everything in Ontario.

In addition to the closure of the PHO lab in SSM causing northern Ontario citizens additional inequities in health care, there will be a lot of implications for isolated and Indigenous communities with the closure of the SSM PHO lab.

Please fight for SSM and Algoma, as closing the PHO lab in SSM instead of increasing testing we do locally creates more inequities in health services and health care in SSM then we already incur.

Please talk to Ross Romano and the minister of health and ask them not to approve the PHO plans suggested by the auditor generals as it is not in the best interest of SSM and Algoma citizens.

During COVID, PHO and the Conservative government should have seen the importance of all of the PHO labs.

We at PHO SSM lab would like to make the citizens of SSM aware that we have a petition that will be presented to the Ontario Legislature.

We are encouraging all citizens to sign the petition.

If anyone in SSM would like a copy of the petition so they can bring to their friends, family, coworkers to get signatures they can reach out to us at PHO lab located at 160 McDougald St. or email Shannon Morris at [email protected]

We require the original copies of the petitions once signed.

Thank you for your time,

Lori D'Ettorre, MLT, Shannon Morris, BSc MLT, Ashley Hodgins MLT, Doris Graf, Maria Simbirski, Kerry Adams, Amanda Collins